AN ANALYSIS OF GEMMA’S MORAL QUALITIES IN LIBBA BRAY’S A GREAT AND TERRIBLE BEAUTY

Abstract

“A Great and Terrible Beauty” is a novel written by Libba Bray tells about an exploration of human morality and presents a constant conversation regarding the inherent goodness or badness of people. This thesis studies about the moral qualities of Gemma’s character. The aspects include solidarity, bravery, responsibility, care, and love that are categorized into good moral while disobedience, rudeness, stubbornness, and violation are included in bad moral. Later, these morals are sorted into two leading factors, they are hereditary factors which are coming from parental issues and environmental factor which are closely related to social activities. In the end, the discussion is ended with the analysis of Gemma’s morals that bring consequences to her life. The study is done through library research that uses data from libraries and cybernetic resources. Here, the method of analysis is inductive method. It analyzes the data from specific cases to a general conclusion. It tries to establish a general truth from the observation of specific facts. In analyzing moral qualities on Gemma’s character in “A Great and Terrible Beauty”, the initial stage is exploring and analyzing some particular events, features, and statements that are cited and acted by Gemma. Hence, using moral theory by Immanuel Kant, such as theory of reason and freedom, consciousness, good will, and duty, Gemma’s good and bad moral quality is analyzed. The result of this thesis is to find out the moral qualities regarding to the human behavior through the main character, Gemma which is clearly defined in the novel of “A Great and Terrible Beauty”. Moral quality is an abstract system to define whether a person is bad or good in conjunction with social convention. An interaction that happens in society describes the varieties of human behavior. Goodness or badness of someone’s behavior is related with moral quality. Without evaluation toward behavioral orders, humans live freely and have no direction. Rules exist in society as the standard of morality that is accepted and believed by the society. The rules become important part of human guidance for the life in the society.